I'm bipolar and whenever I start losing some sleep I retake an online version of the Young Mania Rating Scale. I'm able to tell "this is a sign", but the test is an inventory of how many signs there are and an indication of whether I should call the head shrinker out of regular schedule (which costs money) or just try to hold back on prodromal behaviors.
I'm no longer on facebook, but it would be really useful if something I open daily would tell me "hey dude, you're overtalkative and online at odd hours and maybe you should get it checked" -- but give me the agency to do so. I understand perfectly well that there are mental illness scenarios where the capacity of a person to help himself is lost (making involuntary intervention the humane course of action) but even in mania this is the exception rather than the norm.
I can't think of a model of illness severity where machine learning is able to determine a score but the time course of this score is expected to be discontinuous. Before any noise of escalation without my knowledge, I would expect tools to be developed that would help me realize I'm getting ill before losing agency. Everything I just said works for depression too.
My understanding is that this Facebook program only focuses on cases where involuntary intervention feels justified, e.g. someone publicly saying that they're going to kill themselves.
But I agree that it would be great if there were more tools to help with self-awareness and guide people to get help. I've had plenty of mental health problems in the past, and any source of better self-awareness seems useful, even outside the context of seeking professional help. Still, at least with my Facebook usage, it seems very unlikely that it ever would be able to know when I'm depressed except when I'm already in the process of getting help from a friend.
This sort of thing already exists a little bit. A much tamer variant I've seen is Nintendo games that tell you to take a break when you've been playing for a while. And Google searches involving suicide show the message "You're not alone. Confidential help is available for free." and direct you to the suicide prevention hotline.
I'm no longer on facebook, but it would be really useful if something I open daily would tell me "hey dude, you're overtalkative and online at odd hours and maybe you should get it checked" -- but give me the agency to do so. I understand perfectly well that there are mental illness scenarios where the capacity of a person to help himself is lost (making involuntary intervention the humane course of action) but even in mania this is the exception rather than the norm.
I can't think of a model of illness severity where machine learning is able to determine a score but the time course of this score is expected to be discontinuous. Before any noise of escalation without my knowledge, I would expect tools to be developed that would help me realize I'm getting ill before losing agency. Everything I just said works for depression too.